Booth, G. D. & Miller, H. R. (1974). Effectiveness of monochrome and color presentations in facilitating affective learning. AV Communication Review, 22, 409-422.
(Conclusions.) The assumption that prior years of monochrome viewing would
work to the detriment of color viewing in the matter of learning affect (negative
transfer) is unsupported.
Results of the survey of the pupil home viewing mode in three suburban areas
indicated a ratio of color to monochrome that was reasonably close to one-to-one.
Pupils in grade two appeared to show, in a greater number of instances, more
internalization (involvement) toward positive attitudes when viewing the monochrome
presentation. Pupils in grades two and six have apparently employed more processes
(energy) leading to ideation, or imagination, when viewing monochrome than their
counterparts who had viewed color.
Generally, pupils in grade four appear to be in a transitional state and the
statistical and observational data resulting from this investigation support
no definite conclusions or explanations.
The color variable may be a positive factor in promoting levels of valuing in
grade six.
Inspection of the implications for the narrative vs. non-narrative and its ability
to raise items of statistical significance become purely speculative in that
any consideration is also dependent upon question or item formulation.
There appears to be a steady decay in attitude toward desirable educational
activities (as viewed by the jury) from the positive position in grade two,
to the negative in grade six.
Mode of presentation seems to have some effect on opinion, but any specificity
of interaction between the two falls into the area of conjecture at the present
time.
It must be remembered that the black-and-white images were displayed on a television
set and that the color images were front projected onto a screen. Students may
have responded to the "surround" of the images, as well as to the
images themselves. In other words, the students viewing the balck-and-white
presentations were watching television programs, while the students viewing
the color presentations were watching a motion picture (or movie). Are there
any associations here that may have influenced their responses? A similar experiment
by Link (1961) does not address this question either. Certainly any replication
of this study should take this problem into consideration.